Computer networks have long been used by government organizations, educational institutions and corporations for storing, accessing, and exchanging information between computers interconnected by the networks. Originally, the computers interconnected by such networks tended to be large mainframe-type computers. In recent years, however, the falling cost of computers (especially personal computers (PC's)) has put significant computing power and storage into the hands of small businesses and individuals. In fact, some estimates suggest that approximately 30% of homes in the United States now have a personal computer.
The explosive expansion of personal computer usage in private homes has created a need for more extensive computer networks to permit the interconnection and exchange of information between ever growing numbers of computers. An even more significant outgrowth of this expansion is the diversification of the type of information exchanged between computer. Once limited primarily to research information and corporate data, commercial computer networks now carry information related to a wide variety of personal and professional interests. As computer network usage grows, many businesses are recognizing their potential as a communication and advertising medium and are using these computer networks as a medium to reach and communicate with prospective customers.
This growth in the use of computer networks has far exceeded the predictions of most computer industry analysts. One of the largest and fastest growing computer networks is commonly known as the "Internet", a world-wide "network of networks" made up of many thousands of interconnected computers and computer networks. (The name Internet derives from the shortening of "inter-network").
The term "internet" actually has two usages. Without capitalization, it generally refers to any interconnected set of networks (e.g., local area networks (LANs), wide area networks (WANs), etc.). When capitalized, however, (i.e., "Internet") it generally refers to "the" Internet described above.
Internet began as an experiment over 20 years ago by the U.S. Department of Defense, but it has developed into what today is a global resource connecting millions of users. Although the networks that make up the Internet are based on a standard set of protocols (a mutually agreed upon method of communication between parties), the Internet also has gateways to networks and services that are based on other, non-standard protocols.
One of the most common features of the Internet is the exchange of electronic mail (E-mail). Many Internet users print E-mail addresses on their business cards along with their telephone and fax numbers. Any Internet user or any subscriber to most major online networks (e.g., Compuserve (tm), America Online (tm), etc.) can exchange E-mail with any other connected user as long as the one user knows the other user's Internet E-mail address. E-mail messages, however, are limited to textual data only, and may be subject to size restrictions.
Another major feature of the Internet involves a data exchange facility commonly referred to as "FTP" (for "File Transfer Protocol"), the transfer protocol which governs data exchange by which users can exchange binary data with any Internet site that supports FTP. FTP users can download or upload binary files of any size over the Internet, and can browse through file directories on remote FTP sites. Other Internet FTP-related facilities provide the ability to search for information by content, title, topic, etc. FTP sites and files are identifiable by a special Internet address-specifier which identifies the FTP protocol, Internet site and/or file name and location.
In the past few years, an Internet hypertext facility commonly known as the "World Wide Web" (WWW) has become increasingly popular. The WWW facility consists of interlinked hypertext documents, known as "web pages". These documents adhere to a hypertext language called "HTML" (Hyper Text Meta (or Markup) Language) and are processed on the Internet according to a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). Any web page can link (i.e, reference or "point to") any other web page anywhere on the Internet. As a result, web pages are spread out all over the Internet. Web pages generally provide a "point and click" style of user interface which requires very little user training. As with FTP data resources (files), web pages are identifiable by a special Internet address (known as a Universal Resource Locator, or URL) which identifies the hypertext protocol (e.g., HTTP) for web pages and the Internet site on which the web page is located. Many WWW sites have a default "home page" or web page which is automatically accessed whenever the site is referenced.
Addresses of resources on the Internet are specified by the URLs which are long character strings composed of a protocol name and an address (or URN--Universal Resource Name), which identifies the host computer in which the resource is stored, and includes the path in the host computer to the requested resource. The accepted format is a string of the form "protocol-name://hostname/path". Occasionally, the protocol may be inferred from operations already being performed. For example, if one is browsing directories on an Internet site for the purpose of downloading, the "ftp://" file transfer protocol is generally assumed. In such cases, many browser programs permit the specification of a resource (e.g., file) by the URN only. Similarly, if one is browsing WWW pages, it may reasonably be assumed that the "http://" hypertext transfer protocol is in use and should be the default protocol unless otherwise specified. Internet E-mail addresses are "strings" having the general format: "username@hostname".
Given the electronic nature of the Internet, these character strings (URLs) are usually referenced in electronic documents or in printed matter, by reproducing the entire string. To access a resource, a user will either copy its associated character string (if the URL string is available electronically) to an application (e.g., a software program) capable of manipulating (using) it, or will manually type it into such an application (if the URL string is printed in a hard copy document).
Evidently, the minimum knowledge necessary to contact another party via E-mail or to send or receive information via the Internet is an Internet address; either an E-mail address or a URL/URN specifying an FTP or WWW resource. Unfortunately, these addresses can be very long and difficult to remember.
By way of example, a particular web page might be specified by a full Internet URL having complete protocol and network location information such as: "http://www.hostcomp.com/pub/indexes/userinfo/ homepage.html".
In this example, "http://" identifies the hypertext protocol (the two forward slashes `//` are a special delimiter used to separate the protocol name from the rest of the URL), "www" refers to the "world wide web", "hostcomp.com" refers to a host computer at a commercial site, "/pub/indexes/userinfo/" identifies a specific directory on the host computer's storage database, and "homepage.html" is a file specifier for a hypertext web page written in HTML. When this URL is given to WWW processing software (i.e., a "Web Browser"), the hypertext web page is retrieved (over the Internet) and executed (displayed to the user). It is beyond the scope of this specification to go into the details of Internet WWW and FTP protocols and information transfer mechanisms. However, those of ordinary skill in the art already understand and appreciate the underlying principles and mechanisms.
Many Internet sites provide services and information to Internet users via WWW, FTP, E-mail, and other mechanisms. Many television and radio news departments, movie studios, research laboratories, universities, manufacturers, vendors and a variety of others have publicly-accessible WWW or FTP sites. It is not uncommon to see or hear a news broadcast refer to an Internet URL by which more information on a story can be obtained. Numerous manufacturers provide technical support and documentation via the Internet, and print their WWW or FTP addresses in their advertisements and literature.
The following terms are used in the description that follows:
End user (or user)--one who is interested in obtaining goods/services, such as by purchase.
Service provider--a provider, such as a vendor, of goods/services.
For the end user, the explosion of Internet URLs and E-mail addresses can be somewhat overwhelming. These addresses must be remembered or written down on a piece of paper, then manually typed into a computer (or other Internet access terminal such as an Internet-capable "smartphone"). This process is cumbersome, error-prone, and can be frustrating for the user. (Generally, a "smartphone" is an enhanced telephone device that possesses some capabilities customarily associated with personal computers, such as a modem to permit data communications to occur over a telephone line, optionally an enhanced (greater than twelve keys) keypad, a display device (such as a liquid crystal display screen) for presenting the user with graphics and text, and the like.)